Why File for These Recounts Anyway?

There’s a reason why third party candidate Jill Stein demanded recounts in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and why Hillary Clinton consequently signed on to the work. It’s not simply because Donald Trump won the states in shocking matter, and by such conveniently narrow margins. It’s because all three states in question have now acknowledged that they initially stumbled wildly in Trump’s favor, to the tune of thousands of votes each, in their initially reported numbers.

PENNSYLVANIA

The latest revelation comes from Pennsylvania, where the state’s own voluntary revision of its vote totals – before any external recount has even gotten underway – now have Donald Trump’s winning margin plummeting from 70,638 votes to now only 46,938 votes. Again, this voluntary revision from the state is based on precincts correcting their own mistakes and adjusting their own numbers accordingly, and is not a result of the recount effort. It merely proves how wildly inaccurate (or possibly rigged) the vote counting was to begin with, and validates the need for a statewide recount to catch all the other “errors” that have not already been corrected voluntarily. But Pennsylvania is not the only state trying to clean up its own mess.

WISCONSIN

Even before the current recount process in Wisconsin got underway, the state had already voluntarily reduced the size of Donald Trump’s victory by nearly five thousand votes. These revisions were made even odder by the fact that they resulted in not only Trump’s lead shrinking, but his vote total shrinking. Trump now officially has around five thousand fewer votes in Wisconsin than he did the day after the election.

MICHIGAN

And in Michigan, where a recount is also about to get underway, the state has already voluntarily revised its vote totals such that the size of Donald Trump’s victory has dropped by more than two thousand votes.

So what we now know for certain is that all three states in question initially erred wildly in Donald Trump’s favor, to the tune of thousands of votes each, by their own subsequent admission. And the above shifts all occurred before any forced recounts. It’s not yet clear how many more “errors” the recounts may uncover as they get underway. But it is notable that all three states erred significantly in favor of the same candidate, who shockingly won each of them by tiny margins. It is a reasonable expectation that the recounts will uncover more such suspicious “errors” in Trump’s favor, further shrinking his lead in each state. By how much is another matter? For confirmation of the above numbers, please follow the embedded links to our earlier reporting, each of which includes the original supporting source links.